The message is clear: the heat is on criminals in Imo State. Early last month, we reported a major operation the state launched against suspected criminals in Owerri, the state capital. Security agents moved into an area said to be a haven of kidnappers, drug dealers, robbers and common thieves, and tore it down, arresting some suspects.
Midway into the month, a shanty district allegedly a den of shady characters in Okigwe was also destroyed.
Now, a similar clean-up has been carried out in Ohubaa in Ohaji-Egbema Local Government Area of the state. There, bulldozers have been pulling down buildings and shanties patronised by people believed to have put residents through severe pain.
As the bulldozers tore down gigantic and palatial buildings owned by suspected kidnap kingpins, neighbours were stunned as stern-looking policemen and soldiers supervised the demolition.
A handful of villagers who watched from a measured distance, swore that they never suspected that the men who often came home with exotic cars and a retinue of friends were kidnappers. But the security agents were not deceived by their feigned ignorance as they insisted that they were aware of the heinous crime but chose to conceal the information from the police.
The exercise elicited widespread jubilation in Ohubaa, a sleepy community, which has earned notoriety as a major hideout of dangerous kidnappers and hardened criminals.
Some of the elderly men and women were more forthcoming. They danced and hailed the security operatives for liberating the community from the clutches of the men of the underworld, who had long tormented them.
They said, “We have been living in fear as they have taken over the community and no one can challenge them or dare report them to the police, even when we know what they were doing but for the fear of our lives we cannot say anything. But today we are happy that at last the security men have caught up with them and we are ready to point out their properties.”
During the operation tagged “Operation Osheebe” led by the Imo State Deputy Governor, Eze Madumere and the State Police Commissioner, Taiwo Lakanu and the Commander 34 Artillery Brigade Obinze, Brigadier General Kay Isiyaku, over ten houses were pulled down the in the agrarian community.
According to Police sources, most of the kidnap incidents in the State are coordinated from a massive forest located in the community, where the victims are kept in connivance with the villagers who conceal the information from security agents.
The Deputy Governor in his speech stated that the operation was in line with the determination of the State government to give priority to the security of life and property of the people living in the State.
He said that the State government will not rest on its oars until those behind the unwholesome acts of kidnapping, armed robbery and other crimes are brought to book.
Madumere who was shocked by the massive buildings owned by the kidnappers, said that the demolition exercise is a strategy that will have a lasting effects in the minds of the people so serve as a deterrent to others.
He noted that it will be an unpardonable error on the part of the government if it allows those known for ill gotten wealth to continue to show off with their wealth, adding that, “such will be contradicting the cherished value and the very foundation of the society.”
The Commissioner of Police, in his speech, noted that the strategy of demolishing the homes of criminals and their accomplices will send a warning signal that whoever indulges in crime and those abating and protecting them will not go unpunished.
